Sold: A Billionaire Bad Boy Mafia Romance by Natasha Tanner, Molly Thorne Page B

I’m not thinking about wonderful beaches or high hills or luxurious hotels or boats or roulette tables. I’m thinking about healing.
    It’s curious, the way healing works. You never forget the person and you never forget the pain or the fury, but you see it all in an irrevocably different light, in a way it can’t cause you any harm anymore.
    I had been driven to a deep pit of sorrow and despair when Theo Lambert got rid of me. But now, I don’t miss him the tiniest bit. I’ll never forget him, but I have forgiven him already.
So this is how it works: you let go of your old love when a new love comes.
But no love ever really leaves you if it was true. It becomes part of you, enriching your life. When you look at the dried up tears, you notice that the stain has become a shape that is part of your own shape. That’s when the healing comes.
    And you get hurt again and you become wary, and every time you fall, it hurts a bit more. When I thought Ace Hart was just like Theo, I fell into a still deeper pit. I bypassed the tears and the desire of revenge, and became a woman who lost her soul, like a zombie roaming the streets half alive and half dead.
    I brought my old copy of
Anna Karenina
in my handbag. I turn the pages slowly, feeling the intensity of the words as my fingers pass blindly over the worn, crinkled pages I know so well. I find the quote almost before I look for it.
    I think ... if there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.
    But if your heart changes and grows, the love changes and grows as well. The remnants of my old loves have become part of something greater and more intense, I realize. I now love Ace in a way I couldn’t have hoped to love before.
    What if I fail again? What if it ends in a week, a month, a year?
    I’m afraid of the mere idea. You may know the feeling I have right now:
This is the one.
This is the man I want to spend my life with. A terrible, dark man, hard as iron on the outside, with a loving, tender core that you must find yourself, with time and work.
    I squeeze his hand so hard that I fear I’ll wake him up.

23. MONTE CARLO BLUES
    ACE
    Monte Carlo is just as magnificent and luxurious as in a James Bond movie. I don’t feel like James Bond, though. As I gently graze Van’s back, exposed through an opening in her exquisitely fine dress, I catch sight of Zhurov, who’s betting at the roulette while he waits for our private room to open.
    “Have you spoken to them?” I ask Harlan.
    “The casino? Everything’s in order,” he says. “Zhurov is alone, if you were wondering.”
    “Oh, I like that.” I kiss Van in the cheek as I point out at the Russian jerk discreetly. “Want to try your luck?”
    “Why not?” she says, and walks towards the roulette table with a feline gait that makes my blood boil in desire.
    “Harlan, I hope you’re looking elsewhere.”
    “Of course, boss,” he chuckles, turning his head as quick as lightning.
    “Good. What about Manhattan? I wouldn’t like Zhurov to be here while his guys are there making a mess of things.”
    We don’t make eye contact, instead looking around at the big hall as we speak, registering everything, taking note of any potential signs of trouble.
    “Pip says everything’s quiet. Jack is outside anyway, looking.”
    “What about Tara?”
    “Still nothing from her. Stays awake all night every night. She’ll find it.”
    “Have you fucked her already?”
    Harlan looks at me and blushes instantly. He is about to say something but seems to decide otherwise and turns his head again. The white collar of his shirt contrasts sharply with the deep red in his neck and above.
    “Well?”
    “N-no, of course not.”
    “Not for lack of trying, I guess,” I tell him with a wink, pat him on the back, and go meet Van at the table. She’s put everything on red, and she’s just won. Zhurov made a complicated bet instead, putting money on the zero, eleven, and four